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A prominent Canadian scientist's Paris vacation went to merde when, as he alleges on his blog, a group of McDonald's employees yanked off his patented "digital computer vision system" while he ate a ranch wrap with his family. Dr. Steve Mann writes that "my family and I seated ourselves in the restaurant right by the entrance, so we could watch people walking along Avenue Champs Elysees while we ate our meal. Subsequently another person within McDonald's physically assaulted me, while I was in McDonand's, eating my McDonald's Ranch Wrap that I had just purchased at this McDonald's. He angrily grabbed my eyeglass, and tried to pull it off my head. The eyeglass is permanently attached and does not come off my skull without special tools."

Employees later tore up his doctor's letter (the dastardly deed was luckily captured by his high-tech eyewear) and pushed him into the street. It's unclear why Mann's glasses provoked such ire, or whether or not he finished his wrap.

Mann, who has sported some form of high-tech eyewear for 30-plus years, writes that he could "use some help and advice as to how to resolve this matter, how to ensure it doesn't happen again to me or anyone else wearing Eye Glass," though he doesn't feel equipped to take on a large multi-national corporation.

We're just wondering why a guy this smart — one of the founders of augmented reality! — traveled all the way to France to eat at McDonald's.